My mission is to help my clients to use my “I am 10” approach to achieve that extra edge in business and life, to create world-class organisations, and to build high-performance sales teams.
I have given over 2,000 paid talks to over 250,000 delegates, spoken all over the world and have appeared on US TV networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox on the Brian Tracy TV Show. I have judged the British Excellence in Sales and Marketing Awards (BESMA), have keynoted three times at the prestigious National Sales Conference and am a Fellow of the ISM. My expertise has been sought out by multi-nationals that include UBS, The Royal Bank of Canada, Microsoft, Spotify, Jaguar and Renault Trucks, I know what it takes to give you a good event and get the results you are looking for.
I am the author of three books and the founder of the ‘I am 10’ success philosophy and programmes. My insights, tips and advice are shared by high-performing professionals, business leaders and organisations around the world to achieve commercial success. My blog is one of the top 25 sales blogs in the world and I have contributed to leading industry magazines such as the ISM’s Winning Edge magazine, the national press (including the Guardian and the Financial Times) and TV.
More About Me
My passion is to understand what makes high-performance teams and individuals tick. Is it positivity and mindset? Skills and techniques? Having the right people? The right leadership? The company and product? Is it persuasive pitches and personality? Structure? Adding value and customer engagement? Technology? Or is there another factor?
I believe that what truly differentiates top performers is mental toughness, or remaining confident and persevering with the right actions when others give up and go home. I have dedicated my life to discovering, unlocking and teaching these keys through my simple yet powerful ‘I am 10’ approach, so that anyone can use them to be more successful in business and in life
As a dynamic, straight-talking motivational speaker, I provoke audiences to think about business and life in a whole new way. My mantra ‘I am 10’ and my practical strategies for taking positive action ensure that delegates can take control of their businesses and their lives.
I understand the fears and obstacles my clients face and I draw on my real life experiences to show you how to achieve results irrespective of external events such as competition, tough markets and personal circumstances. I am often referred to as a “catalyst” by my clients because of my ability to educate and inspire groups whilst challenging their perceived roadblocks and motivating them to action.
My fusion of real life stories, take-home strategies and straight-talking (I’m from Yorkshire after all!) delivery style connects with audiences, giving them both the mindset and the skills to make a difference when they get back into the work-place and at home.
The Unofficial One…
My keynote talks are focused on you and your business challenges and I share my back story – whether that is about how I did at school, closed my first deal, got my first promotion, or finally won the battle to lose weight and improve my health, helps audiences to engage with and relate to me. Everyone has their own personal battles to fight. The motivation to fight them comes from hearing how others have won theirs and telling your own stories to build an emotional connection with the people you want to influence.
My first big challenge in life came when my father died in a car accident when I was just 13. Having been a top student destined for a career in law, I stopped paying attention at school and focused on how I could use my communication and negotiation skills to ensure that I could get away with doing as little work as possible.
After leaving school at 18 I joined the Metropolitan Police. Unfortunately, it was nothing like The Professionals or Starsky & Hutch and I met no-one like Harriet Makepeace. I did however learn the importance of body language and the power of communication and talked myself out of several sticky situations. Once I realised the Police wasn’t for me, I tried everything from studying for a law degree to reflexology and even greeting card writing in search of my passion.
Realising that I was skilled to do very little apart from work with people, and knowing that I was not patient enough to become a counsellor, I decided to try out sales. I was an immediate hit, but then it all went wrong. For the next four or five months, I failed to make a sale. Then a friend introduced me to a book that changed everything. Realising that you are responsible for your own success or failure and can take control of your own emotions, I put what I had learnt into practice to become a European sales award winner in my first full year selling. Utilising mental toughness strategies that I had learnt over the years, I was quickly promoted to team leader and then to sales manager before being headhunted to set up the sales division of a start-up organisation.
Building a successful business from zero, on a shoestring, I recruited and trained my own sales team, spotting the potential of one young man as he stacked shelves in Tesco. In my next role, I was Head of Sales & Marketing, looking after three divisions and managing many blue-chip clients for a FTSE 250. During my sales career I have personally opened accounts with hundreds of companies including many blue-chip household names including Siemens, AT&T, Lloyds Bank, Citibank and Jaguar.
During this time I studied extensively in sales, motivation, communication and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). It was through this study and working in these roles that I began to realise the power of the individual over external events and circumstances and where I started to develop the mental toughness techniques, strategies and approaches that I share in my motivational keynote talks and books today. In 2001, inspired by a lifelong passion for self-improvement and success thinking, I decided to set up my own business as a speaker, author and coach, which brings me to where I am today.
When not working, I spend huge amounts of time with my children either at home in Yorkshire, with family in Anglesey or at my place in Spain. I love exercise but also love my food… particularly curry, tapas and sticky toffee pudding (I have no time for toffee flavoured sponge, it has to be the real deal) – a tough combination to manage! I read John Grisham for pleasure and play boogie-woogie on the piano. I am no Jools Holland but if you ask me nicely, and if I am in the mood, I might bang out a riff for you.